How do you beat Cover 2 in 7v7 flag football?
Attack the corner with two routes at once. At 7v7 a two-deep shell finally has enough underneath help to take the free short throws away, so the answer moves to the flat defender: put a receiver in front of him and another behind him, and whichever he chooses is the wrong one. This is the size where Cover 2 becomes a real coverage rather than a gift.
Three answers, in the order to try them
- Start here
Smash
Start here
The flat defender has a hitch in front of him and a corner behind him and cannot have both. At seven a side this is the cleanest read on the field: one defender, two receivers, and no disguise available once the ball is snapped.
- If they widen the safeties
Four Verts
If they widen the safeties
Two deep defenders against four seams, and the middle one is the throw. At seven a side nobody is running to the deep middle to take it away, which is precisely the adjustment an eleven-a-side defense makes and this one cannot.
- If the corner squats
Spacing
If the corner squats
When the flat defender refuses to chase anything, stop asking him to and throw around him. Staggered depths across the field mean four underneath defenders are covering five windows, and one of them is always empty.
What changes at this size
Four underneath changes everything
Two deep and four under is the shape Cover 2 was invented for, and 7v7 is the first flag format that can field it. The consequence is that the patience that beats it at 5v5 stops working: those four underneath defenders cover the windows a spacing concept relies on, and the five-yard throw is now contested. What has not changed is the coverage's actual weakness, which is the flat defender being asked to play two levels at once. Attack him directly rather than looking for grass. The second soft spot is the deep middle, which at 7v7 genuinely is empty, with no third safety and usually no linebacker with the athleticism to run to it, so the seam between the two deep players is a real answer here in a way it is not at eleven a side, where somebody is often running to exactly that spot.
When not to call it
Against Cover 3
A single deep defender changes the answer completely: the corner route that beats two-deep runs straight into the coverage. Count the deep safeties before you call any of this.
On short yardage
These are ten yard concepts. With one yard to gain, the corner route is the slowest developing throw on the field and the short yardage page has better answers.
Take it to your team
Draw your plays in the football play designer, collect them in the free playbook maker, and print play cards so every player knows them come Saturday.
Draw any of these in about a minute
Open the designer, change the routes, save it to your playbook.
Open the designerRelated questions
How do you beat Cover 2 in 7v7 flag football?
Related guides
Coach Ray Carroll
Coaches 5v5 flag football from kindergarten through 7th grade in San Mateo and San Carlos, California, and built RC Football to design, teach and print the plays his own teams run.